And though her music may be overwhelming, it's never evil or dark. "When I'm writing songs, I'm always going for something that sounds anthemic. I really really like that anthemic feel — I like positivity!" She ain't kidding: in "Transformer," off her the album with the unwieldy-yet-awesome title This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That (Kill Rock Stars), a flurry of arpeggiated tapping builds to a tornado of drums, guitar, and voice, as she sings uplifting lines like "I turn this moment into something new, it's true/Are you ready to feel alive?" Her artistic goals come into clear focus in the jarring spoken word of "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling," the final tune on In Advance of the Broken Arm: "So you see, I am not looking to find a pot of gold/The picture in my head is my reward."

Stern recently made a video for "Ruler," from the new album, and it's a Rocky send-up in which she tapes her knuckles, drinks raw eggs, and punches raw meat. You get the sense that she's finally made it up the stairs of this Balboa-esque musical quest — and that it feels good to be there.

"Of course!" she shouts. "Although it took years and years, it took 10 years to find a voice! It was such an exhaustive process. And I'm happy now that I finally found it, but at the same time I want to try to grow as much as possible. I don't want to be doing some kind of formulaic thing — but you know, I can't force it."

Fall National Pop Preview: The golden age Okay, so the album is dead, the music industry is dead, rock is dead, and the Library of Alexandria you have stored on your C drive has killed 150 years of recorded music culture.

Fall Music Preview: Stay positive The face of the local nightlife landscape undergoes a major change in the form of a renewal this autumn, as the State Theatre’s exhaustively maligned absence ends on October 15, with 10 fall concerts on their docket already. But that’s not the only new venue to look out for.

Livening up 2010: Many bands, all over town It was about the experience in 2010. Whether it was the sweaty, riotous, arm-over-your-buddy's-shoulder type of concert or the ruminative, head-plodding sort, concertgoers in town (and away) had much to immerse in.

Life still sounds good for GNR's Tommy Stinson Stinson's legacy isn't entirely based on playing back-up. He's also chiseled out a side career as a guitarist and singer, creating a repertoire of hooky alt-rock songs in side projects Bash & Pop and Perfect and, most recently, in work released under his own name.

Varsity Drag's Ben Deily carves his own path to happiness Even after 25 years, Deily's voice and style remain remarkably similar to that of his teenage years with the Lemonheads: his hybrid of anxious punk delivery and sentimental pop prowess are as earnest and honest now as they were then.

Random Axe | Random Axe It's no wonder that it takes a 10-ton Uzi to get rap fans psyched about posse cuts these days.

THE STROKES | COMEDOWN MACHINE | March 18, 2013 The Strokes burst out in a post-9/11 musical world with a sound that was compact and airtight, melodies coiled frictionlessly in beats and fuzzed vocals.

GLISS | LANGSOM DANS | February 01, 2013 If rock and roll is three chords and the truth, then the mutant genre offspring shoegaze can be summed up as one chord, three fuzzboxes, and a sullen, muttered bleat.